Veronica Mars: Character Sketches
by skyewardfitzsimmonsphilinda
Summary: A series of character sketches. I'm currently half way through the first season of Veronica Mars, and the characters have intrigued me. This will be the first in a series of fics/character studies on the characters of Veronica Mars. Thanks to FF user Riley Holden for introducing me to this show.


_Author's Note: I'm currently watching the first season of Veronica Mars, and the characters have intrigued me. This will be the first in a series of fics/character studies on the characters of Veronica Mars. Thanks to FF user Riley Holden for introducing me to this show! _

Logan Echolls.

His father Aaron was the kind of man who knew when to smile for the cameras; knew how to walk and talk and dress; knew how to be a good man in public.

And he had no idea how to be a good man in his own home.

"You're a goddamn embarrassment."

It is the first words Logan remembered his father saying.

(There must be others before that, he tells himself. There must have been a time when his father and mother were happy together.)

Aaron Echolls is drunk when he calls Logan a piece of shit in front of his mother and sister, and they say nothing.

Logan was twelve, and he held the words close to his heart after that, right next to his mother's overwhelming silence. (It is in her silence you can always hear the strike of a belt, unforgiving against bare skin).

There are other days like that, too, but no one finds out. Logan makes sure of that.

The day he is thirteen and he comes to school with a black eye (it's the only time his father ever gives him a bruise that shows in public). Duncan asks why, concern in his eyes, and Lilly—beautiful, mischievous Lilly—laughs and kisses him on the cheek for the first time, asking how the other guy looks.

But Veronica just looks at him, and she _knows_, he knows she does, and he thinks to himself he would probably hate her for it if she wasn't Lilly Kane's best friend.

Then there is the day on the first day of high school when he has to take his shirt off in the locker room after PE, and he is _terrified_. He ends up waiting until everyone else has left the locker room before he changes, slipping his shirt off his back gingerly, wincing as it scrapes across the welts.

Logan had made a scene in a public park the day before because his father had made a comment about Lilly Kane, and later that day Aaron found out he hadn't gotten a contract he wanted. His father smiles and waves to the press surrounding the gate, and then he takes Logan into his office. Afterwards, his mother came to his room with salve for the welts, and he wouldn't let her touch him.

That day in the locker room he stands, shirtless, for one short moment, shivering and so very alone. He looks at the long mirror, sees the red welts across his back, and shivers as if he will never be warm again.

The door opens, and it's Duncan.

His face changes in an instant.

"Logan, man"—

"What the _fuck_," Logan snarls, yanking a fresh shirt over his head.

"You were going to be late to class," Duncan explains, his eyes wide with horror. "I thought"—

"Get out," Logan says, his voice shaking with rage and embarrassment and fear.

Duncan doesn't move. "Your dad?" he asks finally.

"I said _get out_," Logan slams his locker shut. "Get to class and get the _hell_ out of my face."

Duncan goes, finally, his eyes still wide as if he's just witnessed a murder, and Logan sits down on the bench, dropping his head in his hands.

They don't talk about it.

Ever.

And if Duncan is a little quieter for a few days, if he seems to shrink each time he's at Logan's house, if he invites Logan to stay at his place more often than ever, neither will admit it aloud.

Lilly is pleased, of course—thinks he's there to see her—and Logan lets her think that.

Veronica doesn't look surprised at the slight changes, though Logan is sure she notices them.

(He cannot forget her look that day when she was a skinny, innocent twelve year old and she saw truth in his bruised face and did not look away.)

High school isn't bad, really, he tells himself. Homecoming is fun, Lilly Kane's bright eyes shine when she looks at him, and Duncan and Veronica are there, always there, knowing when he needs to talk and when he doesn't.

It's the end of the world when Lilly dies.

It's the end of everything.

There are whole weeks after Lilly is gone when Logan doesn't speak.

Not to Duncan, not to Veronica, and certainly not to his parents.

If his father acts strange, he doesn't notice, too caught up in his own grief to care about anything else.

He doesn't think it can get worse, and then it does when Veronica's father accuses Duncan's father, and everything goes to hell.

His own father is jumpy and angry and he belts Logan across the face one night when it's announced that Abel Koontz has been arrested. The news had been on, and his father had been watching intensely, his eyes glittering, and Logan had thrown a vase through the TV screen.

Some would have said it was grief that caused his outburst.

(Logan didn't know if it was grief, didn't care; only knew that the thing that drove him was dark and reckless and desperate and he could not control it).

Perhaps, then, Logan thinks as his father's hand collides with his face, it is grief that drives his father, too.

Or perhaps Logan is just a good target.

(He is a better target for a belt, which follows the backhand).

He has a bruise across his face the next morning, and his father won't let him go to school.

"You're not showing that in public," his father says, so Logan goes down to get the newspaper in the hopes that some waiting paparazzi will take a picture of his battered face.

There's no paparazzi, but Aaron drags him inside, shoves him against the wall hard enough that the welts on his back burn.

And now, today, it's been a year since Lilly died; since Duncan got so lost in his own grief he forgot that the rest of them were broken, too; since Veronica Mars decided to stand by her father no matter the cost.

He hasn't spoken to Veronica Mars for a long, long time except to harass her (or be harassed by her). But there's a day when he shows up to school and suddenly the memories of Lilly are strong, _so_ strong, and his father had just shoved him down to the ground and told him to stay the hell out of his way, and Duncan is depressed and falling apart, and everything is wrong—

And he goes to find her.

He doesn't realize that it's what he's doing.

Not consciously, at least.

But he finds himself on Veronica Mars' doorstep, and he's knocking, and he's stupid, he's so stupid, but she opens the door and stands there, staring at him for a long moment, and she knows, god she _knows_ him and the look on her face is going to kill him.

"Hey," she says softly.

"Hey," he says. _God you're an idiot, Logan. What's your excuse for being here? _

"Are you…umm… are you okay?"

She knows he's not.

So he nods, and her eyes soften. "Come on in," she says. "I'm making dinner for myself. Macaroni and cheese. It's not much to offer an 09'er, but you're welcome to join me."

Dear god, he wants this life. Macaroni and cheese, an apartment that isn't so huge you get lost in it, and Veronica Mars, who despite her sass and her tough shell and everything that's happened, doesn't push him the way the others do.

If this was school, of course, she would be taunting him about everything under the sun, and he would be making quips about her father and her status and anything else he could come up with.

But Logan sits across the table from Veronica and doesn't look at her while he eats.

"So," she says finally. "I know you're not really here for my lusciously cheesy macaroni."

He raised his hands in mock defeat. "The game is up, Veronica," he said. "You caught me."

She laughs, but her eyes soften a little. "Really," she says. "Why are you here?"

"I was walking. Needed to clear my head."

"Your dad?"

His head snaps up. "What about my dad?"

"I saw the 'bum-fighting' thing in the news," she said, her eyes too knowing. "I figured he'd be pissed off at you."

Logan smiled bitterly. "You could say that."

"You can stay here tonight," she says. "Dad won't mind."

"No," he says quickly.

"You aren't going back home," she says matter-of-factly. "I already know that. Duncan is too much of a mess to handle yours, and you don't really have any other friends, so if you leave here, you'd be just wandering all night. I don't want you to do anything stupid."

He stares at her. "You're an ass hole, Veronica Mars."

"Yup," she says. "You can pay me back by doing the dishes."

"Fine," he grumbles, and she stands with him.

"I heard you had to help out at a soup kitchen yesterday," she says, following him to the sink and handing him the scrubbing brush. "That doesn't seem like you."

"My dad's idea."

"I know. I heard he made some big donation to the soup kitchen, too," she rambles heedlessly, opening the dishwasher and placing their forks in.

"Yea," Logan says listlessly.

In truth, Aaron had forced him to volunteer at the soup kitchen, and to pay him back, Logan had announced that Aaron was donating half a million dollars to the organization. Of course, Aaron would never dream of backing out of something that had been announced publicly, so he'd taken it out on Logan when they got home. Just as Logan had known he would.

Veronica reached across him to set down a stack of dishes, and his breath hitched in his throat when he felt her arm brush his.

"There you go, amigo," she said. "Here's the rest of the dishes. Get scrubbing." She patted him on the back, and he jerked at her touch, covering it up with a scowl, and something flashed through her eyes. "I have some work to do on a case," she said, but her eyes were still focused on him. "Do you want to help me when you're done with the dishes?"

He hadn't meant to end up here at all.

Hadn't meant to talk to Veronica Mars, not after everything that had happened.

Hadn't meant to be here, much less _like_ it here.

But here he was, standing in Veronica's kitchen and praying that the minutes would stretch out as long as he could make them, because here in this small apartment he almost felt safe.

He didn't plan on staying the night, but time slipped away, and when Keith came home and found them both bent over her laptop looking at Veronica's newest lead, the older man greeted him cordially and told him to stay.

He stayed the night, curled on her couch, shivering because he'd forgotten to ask for a blanket.

She remembered. Of course she did.

When she brought it out, Logan's eyes were closed as if he were sleeping. Her hands were gentle when she pulled the blanket over him, and when one of her hands brushed his shoulder, his own hand snaked out and grabbed it.

She squeezed it briefly, and he released her.

"Sorry," he slurred sleepily, and through his nearly-closed eyes he saw her shake her head.

"Don't," she murmured. "I know…I know what it's like for you… at home. And I hate it."

He didn't respond, just let his hand drop and his breathing deepen, but her words stayed with him.

And maybe, just maybe he was dreaming, but he thought he heard her say something else just before he fell asleep.

"You don't have to apologize to me, Logan Echolls," he thought she murmured as he drifted off. "Not ever."


End file.
